


Their Last Resort

by Star_Going_Supernova



Category: Bendy and the Ink Machine
Genre: Dad!Henry (Bendy and the Ink Machine), Evil Joey Drew, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Mentioned Joey Drew, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Not Canon Compliant, it's pretty cute i promise, the Studio hasn't gone to hell (yet)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-11
Updated: 2019-07-11
Packaged: 2020-06-26 12:43:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19768438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Star_Going_Supernova/pseuds/Star_Going_Supernova
Summary: He pulled his front door open and only vaguely registered his jaw dropping. Standing on his porch were three… well, they looked like cartoons. In fact, they looked like Bendy, Alice, and Boris.(A continuation of anInfinite Worldssnippet.)





	Their Last Resort

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [With Infinite Worlds, Everything Must Exist Somewhere](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12785889) by [Star_Going_Supernova](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Star_Going_Supernova/pseuds/Star_Going_Supernova). 



> A commenter from _Infinite Worlds,_ Tinaangel, wanted to see more of the scene where the toons show up on Henry's doorstep, so here we are! 
> 
> This includes the original snippet and carries on from there, so enjoy! :)

**In another world,** Henry looked up from his couch when his doorbell rang. It was late, and nearly winter; who could be out there? 

He pulled his front door open and only vaguely registered his jaw dropping. Standing on his porch were three… well, they looked like cartoons. In fact, they looked like Bendy, Alice, and Boris. 

“What the—how, who—what is—?” With all the questions flooding his mind, Henry didn’t have a clue where to start.

The three of them were shivering, and when Bendy spoke, his teeth chattered. “A-are you Henry Ross? Joe-Joey’s old friend?”

Henry nodded, dumbstruck. 

“Please,” Bendy begged quietly, “help us.” 

He didn’t know exactly who—or even _what_ —they were, but that didn’t stop Henry from ushering them inside and finding some spare blankets for them. 

They settled on the couch, Bendy in the middle with Alice on his left and Boris on his right. Henry took a seat in an armchair across from them, leaving his coffee table as a buffer between them, in the hopes it’d help them feel less pressured.

Once they looked a bit warmer, all cuddled up in their fuzzy blankets, Henry’s curiosity finally got the best of him. “How is this possible? And what happened that made you come looking for me?”

Exchanging glances between each other, the toons said as one, “Joey Drew happened.”

Henry suddenly felt twenty years old again, in college and facing down some offended student—or professor or otherwise completely random person—looking to pick a bone with Joey Drew. It had always been just Henry’s luck that those sorts usually found him first.

Nonetheless, he sighed with a good-natured smile and nodded helplessly. “I don’t know why I expected any different.” Offering his guests his full attention, Henry asked, “What’s that lunatic done now?”

The three looked between each other before Alice and Bendy focused on Boris. Henry struggled to swallow his laughter. They looked like a couple of kids trying to convince someone in their group to talk to the scary adult.

Ironically, their puppy-dog eyes seemed to do Boris in. “It’s like this, Mr. Henry. Joey got the idea that he could bring us cartoons to life—and well…”

“Here we are,” Bendy said, tugging his blanket closer around himself, like a cape.

“But now he’s wantin’ to keep going. We just weren’t enough. From the way he’s been muttering to himself, we think he’s gonna try somethin’ new soon.”

Henry nodded along. It sounded _exactly_ like something his old friend would do.

Here, Alice picked up the explanation. “We’re pretty sure he’s gonna try and do things to some of the studio’s employees, like Susie, or Mr. Lawrence. And it… it’s got us pretty scared, Mr. Henry. We don’t want them to get hurt.”

Unfortunately, that also sounded like something Joey would do.

“I’ve gotta ask,” Henry said, “but why come all this way? Why not just tell the others? Did you think they wouldn’t believe you?”

Again, they shared uneasy glances.

Boris finally spoke up, refusing to make eye-contact with Henry. “They weren’t the only ones Joey wanted to use for his experiments.” His hand made an aborted movement towards his chest, and Henry saw, once he was looking for it, a faint line spanning the ink from the bottom of his neck to the top of his overalls.

In the moment of chilly silence that followed, his searching gaze also locked on a similar cut encircling Alice’s neck, another across one of her cheeks, and a haphazard mess of them on Bendy’s head, mostly near the curves of his horns.

“We know how it sounds!” Alice cried before Henry could react, wringing the corners of her blanket between her hands. Her halo drooped until it was resting on the top of her head, a bit like a lopsided crown. “We’re accusing a close friend of yours of such horrible things—”

Boris added right over top Alice’s apologies,“If it weren’t for the others being in danger, we probably just woulda stayed—”

“—and it’s not fair to put you in this position—”

“—couldn’t think of anything else to do without Joey catching on—”

“—and he’s probably already noticed we escaped—”

Through their frantic reasoning and worried explanations, Bendy stayed silent, opting to stare at Henry. Finally, he kicked out at their legs, grabbing both his fellow toons’ attention. “You can stop, y’know,” he told them. Bendy straightened up even as some of the tension in his little body seemed to slip away easy as anything. “He believes us.”

Alice and Boris’s heads whipped back towards Henry. “You do?” they asked.

Henry stood from his armchair and moved to sit on the coffee table. Leaning forward, he gave them reassuring pats on their knees as he explained, “I do, because I’ve known Joey for a long time. His ambitions have always been a bit too big for his own good, so as much as it pains me to think this is the direction his goals have turned, it doesn’t really surprise me. Joey and I had something of a falling out a couple years ago. His willingness to sacrifice his integrity to achieve his goals was one of the reasons I finally left the studio.”

After giving that a moment to sink in, he continued, “Besides, I can’t think of a reason why you’d go to the trouble of tracking me down just to lie to me.”

Alice gave him a watery smile. “Thank you. We just—it felt so hopeless, Mr. Henry. We didn’t know what to do, who we could go to…”

“Found your name and address in a box in Joey’s office,” Bendy said, “and figured you were our best—and prob’ly only—shot.”

Henry’s heart ached for these poor toons. He’d seen how Joey was when he was making his dreams come true, and from anywhere else than at his side, he could only imagine how terrifying it must’ve been to have that focused gaze on them. Whatever Joey had done, and whatever else he had planned, was enough to send them running to a stranger, making a gamble that Henry wouldn’t just shoo them back into Joey’s clutches.

It took a deep breath or two to keep any anger from bubbling up. His temper wouldn’t be of any use, not without someone to direct his displeasure at, and the last thing Henry wanted was for the toons to think he was mad at them. This situation called for calmness and rationality and kindness, not anything that might make them flinch away.

With a slightly strained smile, he said, “I’m sorry you had to go through all that. But you’re not alone anymore, and we’ll make sure Joey doesn’t hurt anyone again, okay? We’ll come up with a plan tomorrow morning, after you’ve all had a chance to rest.”

The complete release of tension from their small, somewhat-noodley bodies widened Henry’s smile. He likened them to children again, ones who finally had an adult in their corner.

He urged them up and towards the stairs. As they fiddled with their borrowed blankets, something Alice had said came back to nag at Henry. He paused and looked down at them. “Did you say you had to escape?”

Bendy shrugged like it was no big deal. “He kept us locked in the attic.”

Every parental instinct that had so far stayed dormant in Henry Ross’s body instantly zinged to life.

They claimed not to be hungry when he asked, and he had to wonder if they could even eat human food. With an air of exhaustion surrounding them, Henry was quick to usher them into his bedroom, promising them at least three times that he would be just fine on the couch, and that it was really no trouble at all for them to borrow his bed.

It seemed they had no sooner been tucked in that all three toons were sound asleep. Henry fussed over the covers for a moment longer, stifling his laughter when Boris started snoring, before taking what he needed for his own nighttime routine.

As he settled on the couch a short while later, teeth brushed and lights off, Henry decided that, as soon as he knew for sure they could eat, he’d make pancakes in the morning. Chocolate chip, even, with bacon.

That seemed as good a way to start their planning as any.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you guys enjoyed this little story! I don't currently have any plans to continue it, sad to say. I imagine Henry would punch Joey in the face at some point if I did, though. 
> 
> If you liked this, I'd love it if you left a comment! As always, keysmashes, reports of funny noises, a "Good job!", or rambling nonsense are super appreciated. I received a lot of undying loyalty from my last story, so thank you all for that. :)


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